Information trade meaning

The sharing of information from one party to another for specific purposes is referred to as information trading. Over the years, the government has used nearly every resource at its disposal to obtain information on its citizens, primarily based on the websites they visit, the time of calls and the locations where calls are sent to and received from, the duration of calls and messages, and the nature of emails sent and received. The government in doing this had to choose on the most efficient and effective means of getting this information and arrived on the internet. The government has been pressurizing communication companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft to submit information on their clients in order to facilitate measures of national security (Mergel, 2013).

Human Rights To privacy

The United States constitution prohibits invasion of ones privacy without a warrant that explains the reasons for the scrutiny, places to be checked and the persons to be seized unless after an oath of affirmation and court directive. The United States fourth amendment in the constitution also clarifies that United States constitution protects its citizens from all manner of eavesdropping inclusive of the kind of peeping from the government, this makes all electronic surveillance by the United States illegal unless craved under special exceptions by law (Marko, 2015).

Privacy is a fundamental human right that is documented and held high in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights treaty, the united nations hold high the right to privacy as a key element in upholding ones dignity and freedom of speech. This rule is set to be obeyed by all governments under the United Nations and this includes the United States. Privacy involves the right of home inviolability and all forms of telecommunications spying (Marko, 2015).

Among the human rights to privacy include information privacy which explains the laws governing the ways that the government are supposed to fetch information from people when necessary and how the government is supposed to handle the collected data, bodily privacy involves the protection of one’s body from forceful drug tests, communications privacy which seems to be mostly bypassed by the government explains the limits of the government in getting closer to private telecom information including mails and phone messages. Territorial privacy includes the protocol that should be followed before one’s territories i.e. home and office can be ransacked by the government (Marko, 2015).

United States Supreme Court judge Louis articulated that the freedom of privacy was the most cherished and is one of the key rights that should be included in the constitution and he further defined privacy as the right to be left alone. Although the constitution and International treaties from international bodies clearly protect persons from invasions, the government rarely observes this law.

Information Trade between Companies and Governments

Over the past years the governments have crushed shoulders with telecommunication companies over the need of the governments to be granted access on customer information, the government chose this companies in regard of their growth, number of customers they serve and technologies incorporated by them which offer them a good platform in tracking and clear information extraction (Bharosa, Nitesh, et al, 2013).

Some of the most powerful telecom companies that have been approached by the United States security bodies include Apple Company, Microsoft and Google. The government claims to use the information from the telecom firms to monitor security in the country and to help in combating attack plans in their country’s soil. The need for this information has ended the parties in courts as Apple for example denied to offer information to the government so as to protect and respect their client’s privacy (Bharosa, Nitesh, et al, 2013).

The arguments on whether national security should override the human rights privacy and fetch private information from companies who have relevant information from their clients is still a matter being discussed to date

Data Protection Act

One is entitled to his or her own data privacy when he has surrendered his data to data controllers which may be a company or any other party. When one hands over this data, the party that receive the data are referred to as data controllers and are responsible to handle your data with dully confidential measures. You have data rights when you hand over your data and are held in a computer system, a manually filled form, or images, voice and video recordings (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

This data protection measures were enacted to ensure that your information only remains private and only available to the people you grant them access to. Some documents may be sensitive I.e. bank accounts and it is important that they only remain in the hands of the people you entrust them with and only used as a requirement i.e. in firms such as banks and not for any other purposes within and outside your data controllers (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

A data controller once received your information has an obligation to make sure that the information is up-to-date without any alteration whatsoever, keep it private unless under state purposes and law where need arises to check on them arises, make sure that the information required from you is not too much but just enough and relevant so as to avoid all manners of compromises that may arise. This is the right to have your data used in accordance with the data protection regulations (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

You also have a right to fully information on why you should submit your information to companies that seek to know of your personal information. Before submitting your information, the company or party seeking your information should explain on why they need the information and their intended use and if their methods of handling data will not compromise your privacy at any time (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

You also have a right to seek your data retrieval at any time when you have ended the contract with a firm or business for example where you are still underpaying loans and your tittle deed is held as a collateral, you have the right to retrieve it any time you want after finishing the loan payments. You also have a right of preventing your personal details to be used for marketing purposes whatsoever without your permission (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

Another data right you are entitled to is the right to object to the company’s demands to use our data for their official purposes unless that was in the terms of the contract earlier acknowledged, your information is needed on political electoral grounds and information is made public as per the law for example a shareholders register (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

Over the past years the government has rarely observed the privacy rights, and they are pressurizing telecom companies for example goggle to hand over their client databases for review yet this is against the data privacy act for any company to hand over your information without your consent and permission.

The Reasons Companies Should Not Release Your Information to the Government

The first reason as to why a company should not trade its client information to the government is for the primary reason that such practice would be against the human rights freedom of privacy and at the same time it will be against the data protection act. The government knows this but will go ahead to insist on the same matter even with clear knowledge that such forms of spying and surveillance are not allowed.

The government cannot be trusted, as much as they want to be granted access to mail communications, text messages and calls by the telecom companies, and regarding their ignorance on the initial step that seeking this information is unlawful, who knows what they might do once they get hold of this information, they could decide to use the information in blackmailing strong oppositions who are building up against them like human rights activities. All this is possible due to their ignorance.

One has a right to keep of his tracks, trails and plans to himself for as long as he is not committing a crime, one ought to enjoy this for as long as the government is not granted private data so they cannot be checking on people browsing, vacation plans and such. Generally it would be boring living with the idea and instinct that you are always watched and nothing you do is no longer at personal level.

As much as the government say the information will be used specifically for matters related to international security, nobody can be sure of this regarding the nature of politicians, the government may be using its security bodies to collect private information so they can easily monitor on the opposition forces and even the media where they will be able to see what the media are planning to report in terms of videos sent over from the reporting fields to the studios, with the granted access they can be able to control the media and in doing this they will have totally blinded the public on evil matters they may be running (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

For a fair platform the government should stay away from private information for the obvious fact that they do not want anyone coming close to their information and this is evident when you take a walk around Langley the CIA headquarters for example where every information is confidential and top security. Why should they bother about our private information when they highly hold theirs so private and personal.

Telecom companies have launched some form of data encryption where the client’s data will be so much encrypted that even they themselves cannot snoop around client information. This will have ended the war between the governments and telecom companies as even granted samples the government agencies may not be able to decrypt the information leaving them at a dark end. This upholds company’s roles on ways of handling customer data (Sauerwein and Linnemann, 2016).

The Reasons Companies Should Release Your Information to the Government

Telecommunications companies have the capacity to know and predict on what will happen tomorrow. This is for the reason that from their end they have access to viewing our emails, calls, messages and even locations by using the internet position address. This could be a key stride ahead in combating crime as granted access the government can monitor and comprehend suspects before they accomplish their evil deeds (Atamli, Ahmad and Martin, 2014).

Given telecommunication access, biometrics data and video surveillance access from other private companies the government believes that it will deliver security to its citizens and instances of successful attacks will be reduced to minimum in the country due to the various crime interceptions they may incorporate to ensure that crime is combated at its planning phase and will never get to being executed (Atamli, Ahmad and Martin, 2014).

The government is currently eavesdropping through programs such as the Oratory voice recognition system and UKUSA agreements in which countries agreed to share their intelligence reports without restriction or legal processes. The government also uses hackers to get to information that is much needed, although hacking is illegal, security is prioritized before privacy. As much as companies think their information is a secret, the government may be administrators of the same information they think they manage thus giving the government access may actually change nothing other than the term legal access (Atamli, Ahmad and Martin, 2014).

Telecommunications companies should hand over access to the governments for the reason that the act will not only promote peace and improve ways of combating terrorism in their home countries but all over the world has intelligence sharing has been a major cooperation between various governments (Atamli, Ahmad and Martin, 2014).

Government access will also lead to quick and efficient tackling of cases of abduction. In the cases where criminals abduct children and then fetch ransom from parents, the government will be able to effectively track the call to a specific location and give them a lead to the place where arrest may be done. This will also help on avoiding parent-criminal cooperation on such cases where children are kidnapped and for the fear of child harm parents commit to criminal commands, all this we observed and better solutions implemented (Atamli, Ahmad and Martin, 2014).

Telecom companies may actually benefit from giving the government legal access on their database in that due to the information being treasured by the government, the government may run support on activities such as fighting hacks on telecom company databases as this will be a platform of benefit to them too. In this case telecom companies will benefit as total government support rarely has limits.

In conclusion I would say that although privacy is a key factor in human life that should be respected, security should come first and this is because without proper security the same freedom we fight for will again get compromised as we lie in fear of unknown attacks that may occur at any time. From past experiences on how the magnitude of terror activities may go deep and the impacts caused like the loss of lives, security should be regarded as expensive and should come at whatever cost even if it means invading privacy.

Works Cited

Atamli, Ahmad W., and Andrew Martin. “Threat-based security analysis for the internet of things.” Secure Internet of Things (SIoT), 2014 International Workshop on. IEEE, 2014.

Bharosa, Nitesh, et al. “Tapping into existing information flows: The transformation to compliance by design in business-to-government information exchange.” Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013): S9-S18.

Mergel, Ines. “Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the US federal government.” Government Information Quarterly 30.2 (2013): 123-130.

Milanovic, Marko. “Human rights treaties and foreign surveillance: Privacy in the digital age.” Harv. Int’l LJ 56 (2015): 81.

Sauerwein, L. B., and J. J. Linnemann. “Personal Data Protection Act.” (2016).

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